kviff.com
News
Festival Guide
  • Tickets and Festival Pass
  • Accommodations
  • Transportation
  • Festival cinemas
  • No Barriers project
  • Kids at the festival
  • Festival Shop
Program
  • Catalogue of films
  • Accompanying programme
  • Archive of films
  • Audience award
  • KVIFF Talks
  • Film Entry
Film Industry
  • Industry accreditation
  • Film Industry at KVIFF
  • Industry Days Programme
  • KVIFF Eastern Promises
  • KVIFF Talents
Press
  • Press accreditation
  • Press Service
  • For download
  • Press releases
  • Photogallery
  • Videogallery
About the festival
  • Festival description
  • Programme sections
  • Awards
  • History
  • We support non-profits
  • Photogallery
  • Partners
  • Why We Support the Festival
  • Contacts
CZ
Sign in
Film Archive

The Illusionist

Horizons 2010 / The Illusionist / United Kingdom, France 2010

No-one pays attention anymore to an aging stage entertainer doing the same old magic tricks day in, day out. So off he goes to distant Scotland, where he finally finds a loyal fan – a young girl who believes that this stranger is able to perform real magic... This nostalgic, old-worldly animated film by Sylvain Chomet is based on an unrealised script written in 1956 by French actor and director Jacques Tati as a letter to his estranged illegitimate daughter.

The Illusionist The Illusionist

Synopsis

It’s the late 1950s and no-one pays attention anymore to an aging stage entertainer doing the same old magic tricks, when all they want now is loud rock music. One day our hero swaps his humiliating existence as a fringe magician for a distant journey at whose end – in remote Scotland – he finds a loyal fan who will change his life forever. She is convinced that this stranger is able to perform real magic.... This nostalgic, old-worldly animated film by Sylvain Chomet is based on an unrealised script written in 1956 by French actor and director Jacques Tati as a letter to his estranged illegitimate daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel. Accordingly, in Chomet’s view, this isn’t a film about a love story, but more about the relationship between father and daughter. The animated hero is a tribute to Monsieur Hulot, the character Tati created in screen comedies such as My Uncle (1958) and Playtime (1967).

About the film

85 min / Color, 35 mm

Director Sylvain Chomet / Screenplay Sylvain Chomet podle původního scénáře Jacquese Tatiho / Sylvain Chomet based on the original script by Jacques Tati / Music Sylvain Chomet / Editor Sylvain Chomet / Producer Bob Last, Sally Chomet / Production Django Films Ltd. / Contact Hollywood Classic Entertainment, Pathé International, 35 MM / Distributor 35 MM
www: www.lillusionniste-lefilm.com

About the director

Sylvain Chomet

Sylvain Chomet (b. 1963, Maisons-Laffitte, France) graduated from the newly founded comic art studio at the School of Fine Arts in Angoulême (1987). He acquired his first professional experience with animated film as an assistant in Richard Purdum’s London studio and, at the end of the 1980s, he was involved in advertising (e.g. Renault, Swissair). After returning to France he established a graphic studio in Montpellier, but then moved to Québec in 1993, where he made the animated short The Old Lady and the Pigeons (La vieille dame et les pigeons, 1997 – BAFTA Award, Grand Prix at the Annecy IFF). In 2002 he made his first feature film The Triplets of Belleville (Les triplettes de Belleville), which was followed by the feature segment "Tour Eiffel” from the collection of film stories Paris, je t’aime (2006) and the feature film The Illusionist.

Contacts

Hollywood Classic Entertainment
Psohlavců 8, 147 00, Praha 4
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 226 224 111
Fax: +420 226 224 110
E-mail: [email protected]

Pathé International
6 Ramillies St., W1F 7TY, London
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 207 323 5151
Fax: +44 207 631 3568
E-mail: [email protected]

35 MM
Psohlavců 8, 147 00, Praha 4
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 244 464 135
Fax: +420 244 464 395
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Marta Vaněčková
Distributor

Michal Kroupa
Distributor, Distributor

Other partners
Newsletter

First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.

Follow us on the web:

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
is part of the KVIFF Group family, which covers other projects as well:

© 2025 KVIFF GROUP

Rules for Visitors / Website visitors privacy policy / GTC / Personal Data Protection / Rules for Claim / Rules and Regulations / Contacts